The Rough Guide to Irish Music

World Music Network RGNET
1006; 66 minutes; 1995

The Rough Guide to Irish Folk

World Music Network RGNET
1036; 75 minutes; 1999

Despite bearing the same cover images as the
respective fourth and fifth editions of The Rough Guide to Ireland (and we’re
now onto the seventh) these two compilations have no connection with that book
(nor with the book The Rough Guide to Irish Music). However, they are
part of a now ten years old marketing tie-in between World Music Network and
the Rough Guides. The latter has become well-known not just for its travel
books, but for a series of music reference titles of which the two most
renowned are The Rough Guide to Rock and the massive two-volume guide to
World Music.

Of course, I must lay my cards on the table. Although
I write for the Rough Guides I had absolutely no involvement in the compilation
of these two CDs, a fact which I’ve had to stress on several occasions to some
of the musicians whose work appeared on the first of these albums and who did
not receive a penny from their then label as a result of its licensing of their
tracks to World Music Network (and I should emphasize this lapse was not the
fault of WMN).

All World Music Network/Rough Guide CDs follow the
same production template. Most CDs are compiled from a variety of labels and
offer at least an hour’s worth of music. Most are accompanied by a sixteen-page
liner offering an essay on the tradition covered by the CD, though focusing
usually upon the singers and musicians who appear. The original albums from
which the compilation was drawn are also credited. On the downside you also get
several pages of advertisements – bizarrely, the liner for the Irish Folk CD
includes a full-page ad. for a Dutch newspaper.

These two CDs are somewhat different in terms of the
music they contain, a factor probably influenced by which labels were willing
to license material at the time (which may also explain why Irish Folk
is no longer available – at least, it’s not listed in the Rough Guides 2003
catalogue).

In many ways Irish Music represents the best
and the worst aspects of compilations and it’s worth bearing in mind that it
was issued at a time when the market was flooded by similar collections. On the
one hand, it rounds up the usual suspects (Dolores Keane, Altan, Clannad, the
much compiled Eileen Ivers track On Horseback, and Patrick Street), but
it also draws strengths through licensing material from Green Linnet, Nimbus,
Whirling Discs and Cross Border Media. The first-named provided tracks by Kevin
Crawford, Déanta, Martin Hayes and Joe Derrane (who would certainly not be a
name well-known in the UK). The Nimbus tracks derive from the various CDs which
constitute the four-album From a Distant Shore collection of live
recordings from the annual University College Cork festival in the first half
of the 1990s. So, there’s the chance to hear the duo of Altan’s Ciarán Tourish
and the Derryman Dermot McLaughlin on The Boys of Malin and The
Gravel Walks or the London-based flute player Siobhán O’Donnell joining the
pairing of Karen Tweed and Andy Cutting.

Apart from Dervish’s Molly and Johnny and
Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill’s Colm Cille na Féile, the remainder of the CD
comes from the Cross Border Media label whose products have not been available
for some years. So, there’s space for a marvellous set of polkas from Sliabh
Notes’ first album as well as tracks from Brendan Larissey’s debut and Martin
Murray’s only solo album to date. However, the crowning glory is the track
taken from Cran’s debut album, The Crooked Stair, which begins with Seán
Corcoran’s stupendous solo rendition of Dúlmán before heading into the
flute-led Charlie O’Neill’s Highland.

Unlike a tin of Ronseal wood conditioner The Rough
Guide to Irish Folk does not do what it says on the label, otherwise it
would be full of songs by the likes of The Dubliners and The Johnstons.
Presumably, having already used Irish Music, WMN were stuck for a title
and calling this one “Irish Traditional Music” would clearly imply that its
predecessor somehow did not cover the genre.

Unfortunately, thanks to Gael-Linn
licensing much of its back catalogue to other labels in the 1990s (such as the
budget Music Club), some of the album’s contents
seemed pretty stale at the time of release, even if the likes of Brian Hughes,
Paddy Glackin, Jackie Daly, Declan Masterson and Seán Ryan provide masterful
examples of their musicianship. Still, at least there were more samples of
singing in Irish from Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin, Seosaimhín Ní Bheaglaoich and
Áine Uí Cheallaigh (though I’ll pass on the Clannad-inspired Aoife Ní
Fhearraigh). Much of the album’s remainder was licenced from Green Linnet (who
provided Cherish the Ladies. Kevin Burke’s Open House, Moving Cloud, The Tulla
Céilí Band, Déanta and the truly awful Reeltime), but there are also a trio of
small label rarities.

The first is provided by Óige, though unfortunately
it’s the version of the band featuring the off-key Maranna McLoskey on The
Maid of Culmore. The second (and more highly recommended) is Craobh Rua’s
version of The Red Crow, from the time when Díarmaid Moynihan was their
uilleann piper, and the last comes from Seán Tyrrell’s out-of-print album The
Orchard.

Still, at 75 minutes in length, it’s
hard to quibble about the value of this collection – if only the same could be
true of the trite and sometimes illiterate liner notes. Here’s a typical
example:

Aoife Ní Fhearraigh, the traditional singer from
northwest Donegal, was born into an Irish-speaking family and grew up
surrounded by some of Ireland’s greatest musicians.

How did she fight her way out?

Alternatively, try this one:

Paddy Glackin is one of Ireland’s finest fiddle players. For his second
album, from which these reels are taken, he joined up with his long-time friend
Dónal Lunny to record all the classic tunes of the great fiddle players who
have influenced his music over the years.

My, that must be a very long
album! But, my favourite by a long chalk is the picture of a smiling Déanta –
all six of them – alongside an entry that describes them as “five young
virtuosos”.So, which one wasn’t a
virtuoso then?Come on, Eoghan, after all
these years it’s time to spill the beans.